Preparation:

Collect the following:
- 3 Vessels to hold your weather elements (Grapat Mandalas). Clear jars work well but you could also use small wooden bowls, little cardboard boxes or trays.

- Grapat mandalas: Fires, Rain Drops and Trees

- A bowl or tray to keep your Grapat mandala pieces in for the month. Here we have used a Mader Spinning Top Plate but anything would work well!

- Print the images of the Grapat mandalas (provided) and attach to your chosen vessels.

- Print the provided graph template in A3, cut along the dotted lines and glue together to form a long graph. Note: you won’t need this until the end of the month.

Instructions:

1. Create your invitation to learn and investigate

Place the Grapat Mandala pieces together into your bowl or tray. Set up your three vessels on a shelf. You might also like to display a weather chart (the Treasures from Jennifer or Waldorf Family charts suit this invitation perfectly), the Grimms Weather Set and add some appropriate books.

2. Observe

Each day, invite your little learner to look out the window. What do you see? What is the weather today? What does the temperature feel like?

Place a Grapat Mandala piece in the appropriate vessel. We used:
- Red Fires to represent a sunny day
- Green Trees to represent wind
- Blue Raindrops to represent rain

Do this every day for a month.

3. Create your graph

At the end of the month, explain to your little learner that you’re going to use the information you have gathered to create a graph, which can help us to understand information. Together, place your mandala pieces into the appropriate section of the graph. When you’re finished, take a step back and look at what you’ve created. Discuss the information.

You might like to ask some prompting questions:
- What sort of weather did we have the most of this month? How many days were warm/rainy/windy? Why might that be?
- What weather did we have the least of? How many days were warm/rainy/windy? Why might that be?
- What is the difference between the most and the least?
- If we did this again in another season, what might change?
- What questions do you have?

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of this investigation, your little learner will have:

- Participated in a simple scientific exploration
- Recognised familiar elements of the natural environment and understand that these may change over time
- Make predictions about the weather
- Gather information through observations
- Make inferences, generalisations and explanations based on evidence
- Recorded, represented and communicated observations and findings through a bar graph

Observing the weather is a great way to spark an interest in Science as well as practice recording and displaying data. What will your little learners discover today?